Keven
Keven
Post rating:
+++++
About the author:
Those of you who remember me from hell dump / wddp may remember me posting about construction from time to time. I’ve done all sorts of stuff, labor, some operating, inspection, some surveying. I never really did vertical construction so I’m bad at carpentry and I have no experience with welding (weld inspectors are their own thing, though you can tell a bad weld very easy visually.) I used to work seasonally or for short stints when I needed money. After I came back from Minnesota & got sober I decided to go with something more steady so I worked for Alaska DOT M&O till a position in construction opened up, where I’ve worked for a number of years now.
About road construction:
The federal government ear marks a million billion dollars for construction every year, but this can only go to certain kinds of things - new construction and rebuilds, essentially. Since asphalt lasts around 20 years the goal for M&O is to hold things together for 15-20 years, at which point hopefully a project is ready to rebuild that section. It’s roughly a 90/10 split federal/state for these projects, including state overhead - my check comes from the state, but I’m effectively paid in federal money.
So why does every bridge in USA have a D rating or whatever? Basically because this federal money doesn’t cover repair or refurbishing projects. It’s effectively cheaper for a state to build a new bridge than repair an existing one, but bridges are expensive enough that it’s difficult to get new construction approved, in many cases. Similarly, a “grind and pave” where you grind up asphalt and repave it costs X dollars a mile, where as a full project, which would usually included grade changes, culvert, guardrail and sign replacement, and generally a lot of dirt work costs around X * 3. However, since grind and paves are generally considered maintenance or repair, they have to be paid entirely in state money, making it significantly more expensive to the state.
There are some weird mandates where you can get money from projects that either don’t meet the definition of new construction or are extremely superfluous - there are a number of environmental programs, and my favorite example: You can get 15 million dollars to build an overcrossing at an at grade railroad crossing basically no questions asked regardless of traffic flow because there’s a strong safety mandate to remove at grade crossings, essentially entirely because amtrak can’t stop crashing trains on the east coast.
Ok… so you want to repave 20 miles of road. Here is what the process looks like:
1. Someone, somewhere, gets approval for the project from the FHWA (assuming it’s a highway job.) The money for the job will be earmarked and held till the job is ready to bid
2. Once this is done, you have to actually design the project. This takes literally forever for essentially no reason. Actually the reason is you can only do so much physical work a year & as a result can only bid so many projects, no matter how fast you design them. The FHWA earmark lasts for ~7 years if I remember correctly, and if the project isn’t designed and bid by the end of this time, the money will be returned to the feds. There are a number of ways around this, the biggest one being to break jobs up into multiple parts, which effectively gives you the time limits sequentially, rather than concurrently. There are 20+ year old jobs being built from time to time. The job I did two jobs ago had been rattling around in different forms since the 70s.
3. You also got to get all the permits. Army corps of engineers, fish and wildlife, all sorts of shit if you’re on an airport, etc. If you delay the design process you have to reapply for these over and over.
4. The job goes to bid. I’m sure you’re all aware, generally, how this works in the US. The contract documents and plans are made available and there is an open period for people to review them and ask questions. Bid questions may result in addenda being issued to clarify or change aspects of the contract. At the end of this period, interested parties submit sealed bids, with the low bidder winning & immediately looking at the 2nd low bid to see how bad they got fucked. Due to the small size of the state there are a limited number of outfits that can reasonably bid a large scale project, but it’s generally not overly collusive or rigged at this juncture, which I understand is not the case in some places. The person who puts the bid packet together is called an estimator and they generally get a commision on a successful bid. This is is one of the most desirable jobs contractor side.
5. The project is built. This is where my department comes in. The state is responsible for administering the contract. This includes making sure things are built to plan and specification, but also means administering a number of aspects related to construction that aren’t construction strictly: environmental regulations, labor and wage requirements, traffic regulations, job site safety, etc. Essentially the apparatus that actually governs these things aren’t present and it’s our job to do it all and self report if someone fucks up. However, the bulk of what we do is inspection & materials testing.
6. Now the jobs done and you got to put everything in a big binder which you send to review, who tells you what you put in the binder wrong and then you redo the binder and then the binder goes to FHWA and this is the most important part of the job because it secures the federal money. This is called “close out.” If you fucked up and paid something not to spec or administered something in a way not in compliance with federal regulations they can just not pay for it or fine you as well, also.
7. It’s spring now bitch do it again.
Ok well I think thats enough for right now. I don’t know what kind of things you guys would find interesting… The inspection process DOT side, what work looks like contractor side, the way we’re set up and get paid and stuff… union stuff? Engineering & survey? I’ll write some more tomorrow.
Those of you who remember me from hell dump / wddp may remember me posting about construction from time to time. I’ve done all sorts of stuff, labor, some operating, inspection, some surveying. I never really did vertical construction so I’m bad at carpentry and I have no experience with welding (weld inspectors are their own thing, though you can tell a bad weld very easy visually.) I used to work seasonally or for short stints when I needed money. After I came back from Minnesota & got sober I decided to go with something more steady so I worked for Alaska DOT M&O till a position in construction opened up, where I’ve worked for a number of years now.
About road construction:
The federal government ear marks a million billion dollars for construction every year, but this can only go to certain kinds of things - new construction and rebuilds, essentially. Since asphalt lasts around 20 years the goal for M&O is to hold things together for 15-20 years, at which point hopefully a project is ready to rebuild that section. It’s roughly a 90/10 split federal/state for these projects, including state overhead - my check comes from the state, but I’m effectively paid in federal money.
So why does every bridge in USA have a D rating or whatever? Basically because this federal money doesn’t cover repair or refurbishing projects. It’s effectively cheaper for a state to build a new bridge than repair an existing one, but bridges are expensive enough that it’s difficult to get new construction approved, in many cases. Similarly, a “grind and pave” where you grind up asphalt and repave it costs X dollars a mile, where as a full project, which would usually included grade changes, culvert, guardrail and sign replacement, and generally a lot of dirt work costs around X * 3. However, since grind and paves are generally considered maintenance or repair, they have to be paid entirely in state money, making it significantly more expensive to the state.
There are some weird mandates where you can get money from projects that either don’t meet the definition of new construction or are extremely superfluous - there are a number of environmental programs, and my favorite example: You can get 15 million dollars to build an overcrossing at an at grade railroad crossing basically no questions asked regardless of traffic flow because there’s a strong safety mandate to remove at grade crossings, essentially entirely because amtrak can’t stop crashing trains on the east coast.
Ok… so you want to repave 20 miles of road. Here is what the process looks like:
1. Someone, somewhere, gets approval for the project from the FHWA (assuming it’s a highway job.) The money for the job will be earmarked and held till the job is ready to bid
2. Once this is done, you have to actually design the project. This takes literally forever for essentially no reason. Actually the reason is you can only do so much physical work a year & as a result can only bid so many projects, no matter how fast you design them. The FHWA earmark lasts for ~7 years if I remember correctly, and if the project isn’t designed and bid by the end of this time, the money will be returned to the feds. There are a number of ways around this, the biggest one being to break jobs up into multiple parts, which effectively gives you the time limits sequentially, rather than concurrently. There are 20+ year old jobs being built from time to time. The job I did two jobs ago had been rattling around in different forms since the 70s.
3. You also got to get all the permits. Army corps of engineers, fish and wildlife, all sorts of shit if you’re on an airport, etc. If you delay the design process you have to reapply for these over and over.
4. The job goes to bid. I’m sure you’re all aware, generally, how this works in the US. The contract documents and plans are made available and there is an open period for people to review them and ask questions. Bid questions may result in addenda being issued to clarify or change aspects of the contract. At the end of this period, interested parties submit sealed bids, with the low bidder winning & immediately looking at the 2nd low bid to see how bad they got fucked. Due to the small size of the state there are a limited number of outfits that can reasonably bid a large scale project, but it’s generally not overly collusive or rigged at this juncture, which I understand is not the case in some places. The person who puts the bid packet together is called an estimator and they generally get a commision on a successful bid. This is is one of the most desirable jobs contractor side.
5. The project is built. This is where my department comes in. The state is responsible for administering the contract. This includes making sure things are built to plan and specification, but also means administering a number of aspects related to construction that aren’t construction strictly: environmental regulations, labor and wage requirements, traffic regulations, job site safety, etc. Essentially the apparatus that actually governs these things aren’t present and it’s our job to do it all and self report if someone fucks up. However, the bulk of what we do is inspection & materials testing.
6. Now the jobs done and you got to put everything in a big binder which you send to review, who tells you what you put in the binder wrong and then you redo the binder and then the binder goes to FHWA and this is the most important part of the job because it secures the federal money. This is called “close out.” If you fucked up and paid something not to spec or administered something in a way not in compliance with federal regulations they can just not pay for it or fine you as well, also.
7. It’s spring now bitch do it again.
Ok well I think thats enough for right now. I don’t know what kind of things you guys would find interesting… The inspection process DOT side, what work looks like contractor side, the way we’re set up and get paid and stuff… union stuff? Engineering & survey? I’ll write some more tomorrow.
Horselord
Horselord
take a shit on the floor
Post rating:
~
this'll sound like a shitpost but i'm genuinely wondering how come whenever i go past road works theres nobody fucking there doing anything
sometimes entire lanes can be coned off for weeks, untouched
sometimes entire lanes can be coned off for weeks, untouched
Keven
Keven
Post rating:
+
1. Depending on road speed & volume you need an increasingly large clear zone
2. Especially in urban areas work is often done at night or off-peak hours to increase safety and lower impact to the public. They may be actually not working during your commute.
3. Again in urban areas a lot of work is not visible - they may have a lane closed & a crew is doing utility work and all you see is a guy standing by a manhole or electrical bungalow.
4. Typically if you're closing a lane you're closing a lane, its very disruptive and unsafe to have spaces that are open to the public sometimes and sometimes you will rear end a loader or get ran over by an end dump.
2. Especially in urban areas work is often done at night or off-peak hours to increase safety and lower impact to the public. They may be actually not working during your commute.
3. Again in urban areas a lot of work is not visible - they may have a lane closed & a crew is doing utility work and all you see is a guy standing by a manhole or electrical bungalow.
4. Typically if you're closing a lane you're closing a lane, its very disruptive and unsafe to have spaces that are open to the public sometimes and sometimes you will rear end a loader or get ran over by an end dump.
Chthonic_Goat_666
Chthonic_Goat_666
Post rating:
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keven when people talk of crumbling roads/infrastructure in the US this is because of point 2 in your list?
parabolart
parabolart
Post rating:
~
e
Edited by parabolart ()
misanthropic_rage
misanthropic_rage
Post rating:
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They've been doing road reconstruction on my street since April, I've been watching them tear up sidewalks with excavators, jackhammer the road, dig deep into the ground of the road and bury drainage pipes (I assume), add layers of layers of dirt, compact the dirt with rollers (which I can feel the vibration from inside my house), they even did some asphalting at night .
Since there are businesses located on this road, as well as a high school, they've always kept one side of the road open , so they've been doing all this through fairly heavy traffic with plenty of big trucks coming through as well. It's just fascinating watching and seeing this work being done efficiently while keeping traffic flowing, particularly during the busiest hours.
One thing I was wondering about, they've buried several of these cylindrical concrete objects not just under the road but under a grass hill that is being excavated right now, do you have any idea what these are and their purpose? This is in Ontario btw, not the U.S.
Since there are businesses located on this road, as well as a high school, they've always kept one side of the road open , so they've been doing all this through fairly heavy traffic with plenty of big trucks coming through as well. It's just fascinating watching and seeing this work being done efficiently while keeping traffic flowing, particularly during the busiest hours.
One thing I was wondering about, they've buried several of these cylindrical concrete objects not just under the road but under a grass hill that is being excavated right now, do you have any idea what these are and their purpose? This is in Ontario btw, not the U.S.
Keven
Keven
Post rating:
~
Makeshift_Swahili posted:keven when people talk of crumbling roads/infrastructure in the US this is because of point 2 in your list?
It's because the states are all broke for various values of broke and federal money only covers new construction. Also it's enormously expensive and time consuming to rebuild like a turn pike or similar. There's just no will for it.
Keven
Keven
Post rating:
~
M. R. Those could be a number of things that I can't tell you without more detail - they could be for utilities (electrical or fiber line) that aren't installed yet but may be at a future date, they could be part of a storm drain system, or they could be monument marker posts for survey.
ilmdge
ilmdge
Online
Post rating:
~
I think theyre a hoax being planted for future paleontologists
ilmdge
ilmdge
Online
Post rating:
+
plugged in ilmdge
The OWG passed a big top secret appropriations bill so that we could support our troops and fight terror but typical obama and trudeau are spending all the money on elaborate disinfo ops to gaslight future civilizations. Google "info wars dot com tom delonge false alien artifacts"
The OWG passed a big top secret appropriations bill so that we could support our troops and fight terror but typical obama and trudeau are spending all the money on elaborate disinfo ops to gaslight future civilizations. Google "info wars dot com tom delonge false alien artifacts"
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Keven
Keven
Post rating:
+
I'll maybe post tonight about the challenges of construction in AK / remote construction, one of them being that there's nobody to cat call.
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thirdplace
thirdplace
Post rating:
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looks pretty fun to me
drwhat
drwhat
mt.real
Post rating:
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tpaine posted:you ever get in a tussle with one of these babies. well let me tell you it's no fun.
they are so huge. i have been near one with a car but luckily it was on the side of the road and not the middle of it
keven i would be interested in engineering stuff or basically anything else too
chickeon
chickeon
chickeon
Post rating:
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moose are fucking amazing
Keven
Keven
Post rating:
~
Sorry I'm going to post more either tonight or tomorrow. I haven't for the following reason: didn't feel like it.
misanthropic_rage
misanthropic_rage
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+
stegosaurus
stegosaurus
Post rating:
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lets see some road construction/operating engineer memes
Lykourgos
Lykourgos
Post rating:
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A grizzly bear can decapitate a moose with a single blow.
https://www.quora.com/Can-a-grizzly-bear-knock-a-persons-head-off-with-one-swipe-of-the-paw
https://www.quora.com/Can-a-grizzly-bear-knock-a-persons-head-off-with-one-swipe-of-the-paw
misanthropic_rage
misanthropic_rage
Post rating:
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this is pretty similar to what i was talking about.. part of a manhole i guess.
drwhat
drwhat
mt.real
Post rating:
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misanthropic_rage posted:this is pretty similar to what i was talking about.. part of a manhole i guess.
yeah that's what i was picturing. google culvert
drwhat
drwhat
mt.real
Post rating:
+
the culvert report, with keven konstruction
Keven
Keven
Post rating:
~
misanthropic_rage posted:
Thats a drainage system 4 sure its too large 2 be for conduit
Keven
Keven
Post rating:
+
About working in Alaska:
Everywhere has their own unique challenges, and Alaska is no exception. Here are some of the challenges one may face, presented in my prefered buzzfeed/cracked./com listicle style
Most work is remote. There are three regions in alaska as far as DOT is concerned: South central (Juneau & the panhandle) Central (Anchorage, the Parks up to MP 163, and some surrounding areas) and Northern (the entire rest of the state including Fairbanks, Valdez, Nome, all of western Alaska, the haul road, both highways to Canada, etc.) This means that essentially every job that isn’t in Fairbanks is remote, some quite severely. Look at a map of the state & get a sense of the area, it’s fwiggin massive.
Side note on western Alaska: The FAA is usually responsible for airfield management. However, Alaska has an absurd number of working airfields because every village in the state has one. In the wake of the earthquake of 1964, baked into the federal disaster relief money was the stipulation that the state take over management of airfields. I’ve worked on two village airports, one on the road system one off.
Animals. Alaska is actually much nicer than a lot of areas in the lower 48 because we don’t have snakes, lots of bugs, poisonous plants, etc. Moose are generally harmless (I’ve basically ran into them before and just turned and walked the other way) especially in remote areas where they aren't used to people. They get ornery in town. HOWEVER they can be dangerous when they have their calves. They’re very large & will trample you comprehensively. Bears you need to be very careful with your trash and cooking detritus to keep them from poking around but again generally you can turn around and walk the other way. The two dangers with bears are 1. They decide your campsite is a food source or 2. You basically walk directly into one in the bush. Tundra ground is very swampy and springy & even in low bush things basically disappear. It’s rare for a bear to approach an active work site due to the noise. Ravens will make a mess of all your pots and pans, & in some parts of the state mosquitos can be incredibly bad. When I worked out of deadhorse (north slope) we’d have to sit and wait for 10 minutes while hundred of caribou crossed the road.
Construction challenges. The season is very short for temperature reasons (hard to work frozen ground, asphalt can’t be placed when ground temp is below freezing, concrete needs to be heated during the entire curing process etc.) so work typically starts at 6 10s and usually ramps up from there. I worked 6 weeks straight without a day off this summer. The other big issue is permafrost. Permafrost is a pocket of ground water that remains frozen year round. If it’s deeper than your construction you might not even notice it when building, but what will happen is the extra weight and friction-heat of traffic combined with all that black asphalt absorbing the sun all day will warm the ground underneath it and your road will sink. These pockets can be very large so the thing that ends up happening is your road sink and you get a dip, you fill the dip in with asphalt mix, now there’s even more weight, your road sinks, you fill the dip with asphalt mix, now there’s even more weight, and so on and so on. If permafrost is closer to the surface and you hit it while excavating your work area will change from good aggregate to mud & soup the second the sun hits it and you’re kind of screwed.
Soils: Alaska doesn’t have much clay, thankfully, but it has a shitload of silt and glacial runoff, which can act similarly to clays. I don’t want to type a bunch about aggregate right now so just understand that this is bad.
Alaska is one of the few states in the US where it’s reasonably likely to hit human remains. (A lot of the village work ends up being on or near historic grave sites.) This is an amazing pain in the ass because you need to stop work completely till archeologists look at whatever you found. There’s also a bunch of dinosaur parts around but generally not in areas we work so that’s usually not a problem.
I'll post more later, maybe about the unions & why stego is set 4 life.
Everywhere has their own unique challenges, and Alaska is no exception. Here are some of the challenges one may face, presented in my prefered buzzfeed/cracked./com listicle style
Most work is remote. There are three regions in alaska as far as DOT is concerned: South central (Juneau & the panhandle) Central (Anchorage, the Parks up to MP 163, and some surrounding areas) and Northern (the entire rest of the state including Fairbanks, Valdez, Nome, all of western Alaska, the haul road, both highways to Canada, etc.) This means that essentially every job that isn’t in Fairbanks is remote, some quite severely. Look at a map of the state & get a sense of the area, it’s fwiggin massive.
Side note on western Alaska: The FAA is usually responsible for airfield management. However, Alaska has an absurd number of working airfields because every village in the state has one. In the wake of the earthquake of 1964, baked into the federal disaster relief money was the stipulation that the state take over management of airfields. I’ve worked on two village airports, one on the road system one off.
Animals. Alaska is actually much nicer than a lot of areas in the lower 48 because we don’t have snakes, lots of bugs, poisonous plants, etc. Moose are generally harmless (I’ve basically ran into them before and just turned and walked the other way) especially in remote areas where they aren't used to people. They get ornery in town. HOWEVER they can be dangerous when they have their calves. They’re very large & will trample you comprehensively. Bears you need to be very careful with your trash and cooking detritus to keep them from poking around but again generally you can turn around and walk the other way. The two dangers with bears are 1. They decide your campsite is a food source or 2. You basically walk directly into one in the bush. Tundra ground is very swampy and springy & even in low bush things basically disappear. It’s rare for a bear to approach an active work site due to the noise. Ravens will make a mess of all your pots and pans, & in some parts of the state mosquitos can be incredibly bad. When I worked out of deadhorse (north slope) we’d have to sit and wait for 10 minutes while hundred of caribou crossed the road.
Construction challenges. The season is very short for temperature reasons (hard to work frozen ground, asphalt can’t be placed when ground temp is below freezing, concrete needs to be heated during the entire curing process etc.) so work typically starts at 6 10s and usually ramps up from there. I worked 6 weeks straight without a day off this summer. The other big issue is permafrost. Permafrost is a pocket of ground water that remains frozen year round. If it’s deeper than your construction you might not even notice it when building, but what will happen is the extra weight and friction-heat of traffic combined with all that black asphalt absorbing the sun all day will warm the ground underneath it and your road will sink. These pockets can be very large so the thing that ends up happening is your road sink and you get a dip, you fill the dip in with asphalt mix, now there’s even more weight, your road sinks, you fill the dip with asphalt mix, now there’s even more weight, and so on and so on. If permafrost is closer to the surface and you hit it while excavating your work area will change from good aggregate to mud & soup the second the sun hits it and you’re kind of screwed.
Soils: Alaska doesn’t have much clay, thankfully, but it has a shitload of silt and glacial runoff, which can act similarly to clays. I don’t want to type a bunch about aggregate right now so just understand that this is bad.
Alaska is one of the few states in the US where it’s reasonably likely to hit human remains. (A lot of the village work ends up being on or near historic grave sites.) This is an amazing pain in the ass because you need to stop work completely till archeologists look at whatever you found. There’s also a bunch of dinosaur parts around but generally not in areas we work so that’s usually not a problem.
I'll post more later, maybe about the unions & why stego is set 4 life.
aerdil
aerdil
Post rating:
+
have u been haunted by the ghosts of any of the skeletons youve disturbed while being a settler colonist?
Keven
Keven
Post rating:
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Ghosts aren't real dude.
karphead
karphead
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finally, a return of the railroad thread
ilmdge
ilmdge
Online
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+
Keven posted:Ghosts aren't real dude.
Goony atheist much?
cars
cars
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating:
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the Doctor communis supports Keven's findings on ghosts. myth busted.
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stegosaurus
stegosaurus
Post rating:
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i see a tpaine fake name dump and just close my eyes and nod whilst upvoting
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[account deactivated]
[account deactivated]
getfiscal
getfiscal
Mike Nelson here.
Post rating:
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(I'm hanging out with TPaine in Florida)
TPaine: This Police Academy is nonsensical. These people murder black people. Hightower is a ridiculous name. No institution of this sort would remain open.
TPaine: This Police Academy is nonsensical. These people murder black people. Hightower is a ridiculous name. No institution of this sort would remain open.
[account deactivated]